A Dog Story

I debated whether or not to post this for some time, now. I’m sure we’re going to take our share of shit for all this, but the story has to be told.

4 years ago, we adopted Bandit, a little lab puppy, from the local Humane Society on Armenia ave (3607 N Armenia Ave, Tampa, FL 33607). He was a hyper dog – never did really grow out of it – and very stubborn with training. But he was also very loving, attentive, and you could tell he WANTED to obey, to please. We loved him a lot.

Unfortunately, as our firstborn Jacob entered his toddler phase, we discovered that Bandit was not good with little kids. Whereas our other dog, Duncan, would generally tolerate toddler foolishness, or at worst grumble a bit and leave the room, Bandit was confrontational. He had a right to whatever he was doing, to his toys, to his space, and the toddler better listen. Understandable, mind you, as toddlers are exhausting to parents too. But it was also unacceptable. We had a number of close calls with snapping.

After a while, it became clear we could not train this behavior out of him. It was ingrained. We began to look for a new home for him. We posted a bunch of stuff on social media, contacted a number of rescues and agencies, and put the word out at the Vet office Jenny works at. After a few months, there were no takers, and we suffered another very close call.

It was time to consider more drastic options. We called a local no-kill shelter – the very Humane Society shelter we adopted him from, in fact. We discussed the situation with them, and Jenny dropped him off at their intake center on Tuesday. She brought with her all of his history and papers (she is meticulous about that sort of thing) and explained that he would make a very good companion for adults, or for older children, but that he was just not tolerant enough of small children. They were understanding and reassuring – he would get a second chance.

That night, we realized that we had forgotten to bring his favorite toy with him, and so the next morning I grabbed his toy and drove down to the shelter on my lunch break from work. I got a very strange runaround when I showed up. First, the front desk told me that they could not give me any info on Bandit and suggested I should call the intake center myself, or go directly to the intake center. So I went down, explained why I was there, and waited. I waited a long time and got a number of strange looks. Something was clearly very wrong. Whatever. I loved this dog, and he should at least be able to keep his favorite toy, right?

Eventually, a woman came and explained that he had been put down shortly after we dropped him off.

Naturally, this was a tremendous shock. We did not bring him to this shelter just to see him killed within the hour. The worker’s excuse was that they did not know his history, where he came from, his temperament, etc… I call bullshit on this. Jenny arrived with a mountain of paperwork, and he came from THEIR shelter originally. Then the worker tried to tell me that he bit someone, something that I found extremely unlikely (naturally, they did not produce the person supposedly bitten). He was a very loving dog, and unless you were doing something you shouldn’t (which, unfortunately, our toddler DID do some of the time – hence the problem), he was a perfectly good dog.

I left profoundly angry and confused. Jenny, naturally, did not take it well.

Jenny left a scathing review on their site, confused that they would just betray our trust and kill him like that – and not even contact us. This was especially confusing to her given that she emailed them after she dropped Bandit off, expressing that if there were ANY problems, we would come back, pick him back up, and take him someplace else, or try something else.

Yesterday, Jenny got a call from their director of operations. They claimed to have had IT problems, and that they did not get her email until today. Furthermore, she provided a THIRD story about what happened, this one at least admitting some fault.

Her version of events was that the intake lady had been lazy about paperwork, and not followed protocol, which is to have the dog acclimate to the new (scary!) environment for a few days before messing with him, and that a worker had attempted to enter his holding area, and that Bandit had lunged at the worker. That part I can almost believe, given that Bandit loved to jump up on people and lick them (that was something we never could quite train him out of). That was not an attack. The director claimed to have video footage, but naturally she did not see fit to share the footage with us. She did, however, at least admit that the rest of the footage showed Bandit as a friendly, happy, sociable dog. The person who put him down did so flippantly and too quickly – again, against protocol – and was supposedly fired, with the intake person demoted and/or removed from duty as well.

Meanwhile, I cannot help but suspect that had I never showed up the next day trying to give him his favorite toy, they never would have told us any of this. And, furthermore, their donations are highly dependent upon their nature as a “no-kill” shelter. They say on their site that they are no kill for “space or resources.” So what I think happened is this. They DO kill for space/resources, but spin it as something else. When they get a dog via intake that they suspect will be difficult to adopt out, an excuse is manufactured, and the dog is quietly put down. Can’t have it be known that they are really a kill shelter – and, worse, they don’t even give the dog a few weeks, like kill shelters usually do. They just cart off the hard-to-adopt ones and quietly kill them.

To be fair, that’s just a theory. And maybe my cynicism has gotten worse with age and I’m totally off base. Whatever the case, we trusted them to help us find a home for Bandit, and they just killed him about as fast as humanly possible instead. I feel violated and wronged. I was lied to multiple times. Three separate stories, and a lot of run around and bullshit excuses.

Instead of finding a new family – one without toddlers – he’s dead, and I’m furious.

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26 Comments

Triple Sphinctered Wombat
on June 1, 2018 at 2:54 pm

Some ideas:
1. Make the shelter people miserable. PUNISH THEM. Give your story to the local paper, at least.
2. If you ever have a dog that demonstrates this kind of behavior again, try the Dog Whisperer. He has a book that may help; alternately, he may refer you to a local trainer. The key will likely be that the dog needs to learn he is LOWER in the family hierarchy than the kids.

My sister’s Chihuahua just bit my 9 month old in the face. Fortunately he’s fine, didn’t get him in the eye or anything though it was close. The dog of course had to be reported when we went to the hospital for treatment. They too have a new baby so they are terrified of the decision they’ll have to make soon, and of course they feel terribly guilty over their nephew. For now they’re trying separation and a muzzle, but even if he acts fine how can they trust him again? Especially when their own distrust will make him nervous. The whole situation sucks. Who would take an aging Chihuahua?

I had a similar experience in 2003. WE were getting ready to move back to Mich. from Cumberland county, Tn. We had a nice very well behave black lab mix who wouldn’t accept a leash or tie out. She would work her way out of her collar or choker and wouldn’t stop till she did. Since we were making a twenty hour trip and Michigan is very strict on leash laws we couldn’t take her. We took her to the local shelter run by my daughter’s “friend”. The next day when we called we were told she had wiggled under the pen gate and escaped leaving behind a lot of blood. The pen gate was standard fence gate on concrete pad. I swore then no more shelters for my dogs.

What happened to Bandit was so not cool! Direct your anger to where it can do the most harm/good….. you already shared the story here but it needs to go further and deeper. Share a link to this article on every bit of social media you have access to. Share a link to this article on every bit of social media that shelter is on (check Yelp too!).

As much as I appreciate your blog. The story feels not right. It’s not the kill shelters fault. You brought the dog to that place. As much as I understand the situation. There are things we have to deal with it. A dog is a dog and as such an animal. This society is mixing up Disney movies with reality. You don’t let animals close to your offspring. Our forebears knew that. The dog protected just his position within your group. It’s his nature. Your role as leader of the “pack” was to deal with it. And you were all going the easy way compared to that. Dropping off the dog and that’s it. Problem solved.

A dog is an animal. But over the thousands of years this particular animal has developed a deep bond with humans. They are always happy to see us. No matter what. Headache, bad weather or the stupid neighbor dog, you come in and their whole world turns into a happy land. They kind of trust us and bond with us. And I think that’s the reason why you are angry. It’s not the shelter. It’s not because they lied to you. You have let your dog down and as consequence of it your dog has been killed. The responsible person is you. Stop being angry and mourn. Mourn about the loss of your dog.

Whether or not the story “feels” right to you, this is what happened. As for fault, let’s lay out who is responsible for what. I am responsible for my inability to train this behavior out of the dog. I have trained many dogs over the years, and this is the first time I have outright failed. I do not know what would have worked, in retrospect, but for this failure the fault is mine, and mine alone. The shelter is responsible for lying to us. If they wish to be a kill shelter, I understand. Limited space and resources being what they are, we must all live in the real world. I do not fault a kill shelter for being a kill shelter, I fault a kill shelter for lying and saying they are a no-kill shelter. Without honesty and accurate information, correct decisions are much harder to make.

Put simply, if they had said “we are a kill shelter, and if you give us this dog, we will probably kill him” our actions would have been different. The guilt of having to give him up – for which I accept full responsibility – was bad enough. Add on top of that the anger of being lied to by the shelter, and you have the present situation.

Thales, would you mind sharing some contact info in case people want to verify the story. I don’t mind sharing this on social media here in Tampa, and I will be contacting the shelter myself for answers since I have personally donated before based on their good reputation as a no kill shelter. II wan to be able to use your name and any info your willing to give to make this as credible as possible.

This is no different than when you find a nursing home for a loved one, they tell you how they will be helpful and assist your loved one and then euthanize them! It’s wrong on so many levels. I hope you don’t have guilt, you were misled, unless there is something else to this story we don’t know. So sorry. The public needs to know if dogs do get euthanized there and under what circumstances.

So sorry 🙁 Shelters are a rough business. I’ve volunteered in rescue and there are just so many animals out there. It’s awful that they lied to you. The only explanation I can possibly come up with is that people lie when they drop off animals. So for you to tell them about the snapping, they probably assumed the situation was much worse and acted accordingly. This doesn’t justify their treatment of you, but I have to assume that few people ever come back the next day.

This story is sad. It is sad about your dog yes, but it’s also sad because it’s just another example that as humans we can no longer trust each other. You have to assume the worst about people. And how awful is that thought?

Several years ago, we adopted a 2-yr-old lab-mix from our local shelter which required us to first spend a few minutes with the dog in the presence of a shelter worker. The dog exhibited nothing alarming. We paid the $150(!) fee and took him home. After 2 unprovoked attempts that night to go after my then 6-yr-old son, I returned the dog to the shelter the next morning and explained what had occurred. I learned the dog’s previous owners had never interacted with him or socialized him, instead leaving him alone hours on end every day in their backyard. The shelter had no idea how he would respond once adopted. I demanded a refund for their failure to disclose the dog’s background. They said it was not their policy, and I could “appeal” to their board of directors. Eight years later, I’m still waiting to hear the outcome of my appeal.

Hate to say it, but dogs are lower on the totem pole than humans. Dogs are animals. As someone else indicated above, there are many more dogs than shelters can handle.

A dog that can’t get it through its head that it ranks BELOW the humans in the familiy is broken. There are plenty more dogs where that one came from, so there’s no reason to keep a “broken” one. Nobody else wants to take over your broken dog, either, when they can get a brand-new non-broken dog.

As a parent who has had multiple kids and mulitple dogs, I will say that you were irresponsible to keep that dog the 2nd time he snapped at your child. (1st snap he gets told that he cannot do that. 2nd snap means he didn’t learn.) We had a dog who snapped at small children. We put him down and cried that night because we loved him—but he could not be trained out of unacceptable dangerous behavior to human children.

Hi! I help run a Facebook page where we are trying to open people’s eyes about the HSTB. Is there any way you can email us so we can talk? We frequently work with Steve Andrews getting stories like these out. If so our email is rescuemetampa@yahoo.com

I’m so sorry for your loss. Unfortunately it’s not the first time we have heard it happening.

This shelter has some serious issues, including dirty dealings with the county animal control “‘pet resource center”. They both like to hide their kill numbers or blame it on behavioral or medical issues not overpopulation, which is a tremendous issue. I’m sorry you were lied to but glad you are helping to expose this.

So sorry to hear this sad news about poor Bandit. I think Steve Andrews from channel 8 would be interested to hear this story. He seem to be the only reporter to care about injustice and animal welfare. He’s investigated a number of times in to the Hillsborough County Animal Rescue Center as they seem to be doing a similar thing.

We rescued a dog from a kill shelter that later became a no-kill shelter. We used to go there , help bath dogs, walk them and donate both money and food. The director called meone day to say what a great dog Bobby was and that if someone didn’t adopt him he would be euthanized. My wife and daughter came back the next afternoon with Bobby. Bobby was with us for 11 years and was a favorite of the immediate family, grandkids (who still talk about him) and neighbors.
A few weeks after Bobby past away I was driving by the Animal Shelter where we rescued Bobby and decided to stop by and see what type of donation we could make in honor of Bobby. I asked the front desk
lained to the front desk person my reason for being there, before asking for the Director, and she just looked at me and said “I’m sorry, we certainly could have used the donation.”
I left not understanding how someone could turn a positive thing into a negative in less than two minutes and it totally diminished my euphoric feeling that I was having about Bobby as I was walking in there.
I can certainly feel your loss after reading your story, as we sometimes have to deal with people that are in the wrong business when it comes to caring for people or animals.